WHO IS JESUS
The 18th Sunday after Trinity 2022
Readings: Amos 8:4-12; 1 Cor. 1:4-8; Psalm 110; Matt. 22:34-46
16 October 2022
WHO IS JESUS
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. AMEN.
In this universe one single question stands as the great rock that divides the whole flood of the universe: Who is Jesus? How you answer that question determines everything else.
Is Jesus merely a good man, a great teacher, the founder of another religion? Was he merely a great man who, like Buddha or Mohammed or Ghandi, thought deeper thoughts than the rest of us?
Jesus himself never claimed to be a great man or a great teacher, and he didn’t found a religion, if by religion you mean a set of rules men make for themselves. Jesus claimed to be something much greater, and today we are going to examine that claim. Jesus’ outrageous claim poses a question that every single man or women ever born must answer, and you cannot escape even if you avoid the question. One day you will answer that question, whether you want to or not, and you will answer it correctly.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Today’s gospel opens with the question, “What is the most important law? but Christ directs his questioners to another, more important question. Who am I?
Remember that Christ is staring at the cross only a few days away. He asks this question precisely because the scribes believed an error, and before he goes to the cross he must clear it up.
They believe that the Messiah or Christ would be one of David’s sons and successors, an earthly king for Israel, but nothing higher than a man. Their idea of salvation rises no higher than restoring the nation Israel to independence, not to restoring men to peace with God and to Eden.
BOTH MAN AND GOD
Now consider. If Jesus is only a man, only David’s son and heir, no matter what great things he might do, he cannot mediate between God and man. If Jesus is only a man, he cannot be the ladder from heaven to earth so that heaven comes down to earth and earth can rise to heaven.
Why not? What stands between God and man? Sin. To make peace between God and man the mediator must first remove the barrier of sin. No mere man can do that.
Why? God is perfectly holy. He cannot even look at sin. One man cannot pay for the sins of another, any more than any human court will let a murderer go free if some friend volunteers to sit in the electric chair for him. (Cf. Psalm 49:7-8) No man can pay God for another man’s sin, because every man is guilty of the same sin. He is Adam’s son. He has no innocence to offer.
How then can sin be removed? It must be punished, and that punishment must be laid on a substitute. The substitute must be perfectly innocent and perfectly holy. The offense to God’s infinite holiness and the punishment due to man can only be paid by someone who is both wholly innocent and infinite, because the offense is infinite.
DAVID FORETELLS MESSIAH
In today’s Gospel Jesus uses this David’s prophecy in Psalm 110 to teach the scribes that no mere man can be the Mediator between God and man, but only one who is both God and man.
If the Mediator were only God, then his redemption would not reach to us. Why not? Only by suffering for sin as a man in the flesh of man can man’s sin be punished and man be redeemed.
Try to grasp this unspeakable mystery: Christ had to take upon himself all our nature, not only our flesh, but also our mind, our emotions, our heart, and our will because what he did not assume as a man he cannot redeem. (St. Gregory Nazianzen) He, being God, by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary assumed all human nature, so our nature is now joined to God by the Incarnation. He assumed all of our nature so that he could redeem all our nature and unite us to God. As he participated in our human nature, so now we through him participate in the divine nature.
MUST BE UNITED TO US.
Right here is the offense of the Cross. This is the insult in Christ and Christianity that men will not forgive. What kind of God is this, who allows himself to be crucified? Where is his power, if puny men can crucify him? Yet here is the greatest mystery, that his power and his infinite love are nowhere more clearly shown than on the cross. Only by paying the penalty of sin – death -- could he redeem those who were subject to death. Listen to Hebrews 2:14- :
14* ¶ Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15* And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
16* For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
17* Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
Mark this well: Christ can only be the mediator between God and man if he himself is both God and man. That is the heart of our salvation, and for that very reason the devil and all heretics always attack the nature of Christ. They reduce him either to a mere spirit, or they reduce him to a mere man, anything but wholly God and wholly man at the same time.
MERCY TO THE SCRIBES
From many prophecies these Jews already knew that the Christ would be descended from David, but there they stopped short. They could not imagine that the Messiah must be both man and God.
Here we see why this question, “Who is Jesus?” is the world’s most important question. If Christ is not both God and man, we have no hope, no forgiveness, and no salvation. We have believed a lie.
Before Jesus goes to the cross he wants to make perfectly plain that he is God. His teaching and his miracles have already revealed his divinity, but before the crucifixion he now asserts it plainly, for believers and for unbelievers alike. For believers, so that after the crucifixion his redeemed can still rely on him with all confidence and boldness; for unbelievers, so that they will know the truth. So Jesus uses David’s own words to prove to the scribes that the Redeemer does not come from earth alone.
Watch now, and draw comfort for yourself from Christ’s gentle manner of teaching. By question and inference he leads them, even his enemies, to draw the correct conclusion and make the discovery themselves. If they are teachable, and really want to know the truth, they cannot help but learn.
Next observe how Jesus teaches. He does not lecture. He does not make bald assertions. He asks questions, gently, mildly, submissively so that nothing in his manner hinders his hearers from coming to the truth. By asking questions, Jesus leads his hearers to grasp the answer by themselves. He knows that we learn best those things we figure out for ourselves.
WHO IS JESUS?
Jesus asks them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
Without hesitation they answer, “The son of David.” Why, everybody knows that from the prophecies.
But then Jesus adds another question: “How then can David, speaking by the Holy Spirit, call him Lord, saying, `The LORD said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool?’ If David calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?”
Jesus is quoting Psalm 110, written by David himself. The psalm foretells the reign of Messiah, so it cannot refer to David, but was dictated to David by the Spirit to describe Christ’s future reign.
There is another reason the psalm cannot refer to David: it does not describe David. Rather, David introduces a new kind of king, clothed with a different priesthood. Psalm 110:4:
“The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”
Wait, wait! This is not the priesthood of the law that Jesus’ hearers knew and saw before them every day. No, this is an everlasting priesthood that was established before the Law and that will abolish the Law’s priesthoo.:
In the very first words this psalm proves that the Christ will be much more than the mere descendant of David, because David, the king and head of his people and grandfather of the Messiah, calls him “Lord.” Plainly, he is greater than David and there must be something in him greater than any man.
And there is. The psalm shows that Christ will reign not as a man for a while but forever. He will be a priest not as a man for a while, but forever. On top of that, he will conquer and subdue every single one of enemies.
No mere man could do this.
David also prophesies that God would extend Christ’s kingdom far and wide over the whole earth.
Finally, the psalm foretells that Christ will combine in himself the offices of priest AND king, which no man had every done, and which the law forbade.
So David, a holy king himself, gladly sings this song to Christ, and willingly submits himself to this Lord because he is the only hope of salvation. And if David the great submits to Christ his son as the greater, then no one can doubt that Christ is more than a man: he is God himself, clothed with the power and majesty of God.
HOW DO YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION?
Without ever drawing the conclusion in so many words, Jesus shut his enemies up. He didn’t need to draw the conclusion, because the answer was already too clear. He killed all their pride, because they prided themselves on knowing everything about the coming Messiah and about God, and Jesus showed that in fact, they knew very little.
God will not be stuffed into anybody’s little box. He is too vast for that, mighty and merciful and mysterious and gracious above all that we can think or ask or imagine.
Who could imagine that God’s own Son would consent to the humiliation of taking on human flesh? Who could imagine that God himself would become man and suffer crucifixion to take away man’s sins? Flesh and blood cannot imagine such mercy.
Who is Jesus? Only the Spirit of God can answer this question, and only by the Spirit of God through faith can you answer this question.
Who is Jesus? He is the promised Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer, fully God and fully man, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, Lord over all, God blessed forever, world without end. Ω
Glory be to the Father, And to the Son, And to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, Is now and ever shall be,
World without end, Amen
Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
LORD, we beseech thee,
grant thy people grace
to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh, and the devil;
and with pure hearts and minds
to follow thee, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
